best portable external hard drive for pc and mac

Its also something of a misnomer, as the actual drive mechanism inside the tough shell is usually a normal, off-the-shelf storage component, just like youd find in any laptop or desktop.

Extreme ruggedness against dust, water, drops, crush pressure.

Small, light, and even mailable, it earns the right to add extremely in front of fast and rugged.

Read Review ADATA HD710M Pro External Hard Drive Pros: Durable in drop tests.

Bottom Line: Love or hate its camouflage look, the ADATA HD710M Pro external rugged hard drive provides on-par performance and fine durability at a competitive price.

No backup utilities or photovideo subscription deals included.

Read Review ioSafe Rugged Portable SSD (500GB) Pros: Speedy performance.

Highly ruggedized against crush, immersion, shock, environment, altitude, and chemicals.

No USB-C. Bottom Line: If you and your files need to venture into the unknown, the ioSafe Rugged Portable SSD might be the trusty, nearly indestructible companion youre looking for.

But for the average user, there are plenty of durable, reasonably priced external drives with higher capacity.

LaCie Rugged RAID Shuttle Pros: Flat, easily mailable chassis.

Can set to RAID 0 for higher speed and capacity, or to RAID 1 for drive mirroring.

High price per gigabyte, due largely to ruggedization and RAID design.

Its ideal for anyone who works in the field and produces oodles of data.

Read Review Samsung Portable SSD X5 Pros: Extremely fast data transfer speeds, thanks to Thunderbolt 3 and PCIe NVMe interfaces.

SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD Pros: IP55-rated for shock-, dust-, and water-resistance.

Read Review CalDigit Tuff Nano Pros: Slim and sleek, with an anodized aluminum case and rubber bumpers.

USB-A and USB-C cables included, as well as a convenient plastic case.

Looks like youre going to need a hard drive designed to withstand the rigors of the real world.

Now, any ordinary external hard drive has some degree of toughness.

Some rugged drives are built to withstand forces that would kill any bare-naked internal drive: strong impacts, water immersion, even fire.

Drives designed for more casual abuse are often marketed as ruggedized, but thats an inexact term.

Best Portable External Hard Drive For Pc And Mac